Video Premiere: Erica Blinn’s “When I’m With Suzie (I Do What I Want)” From “Better Than Gold”

Americana Highways brings you this fantastic video for this outside the box song by Erica Blinn. The song “When I’m With Suzie (I Do What I Want)” is from EricaBlinn’s recent album Better Than Gold (Curry House), and features Blinn on lead vocals, electric guitar and percussion; Steven Cooper on lead electric guitar and Wade Cofer on baritone guitar; Michael Talley on keys, PJ Schreiner on drums and percussion with Blinn’s dad, Jerry Blinn, on bass. Bree Frick contributes backing vocals, and The Soul Satyr Horns: (John Bonham – trumpet, Ted Basinger – trombone and Joe Reasoner – saxophone) also add sounds and the song was produced by Mike Landolt. [For our earlier review of this album click one of these bolded words right here.]

The video is by Evalation Media, directed by Mike Darling, with production designer Angelica Star. The characters in the video are: Millie Martin as Suzie, PJ Schreiner as the hardworking bartender with Erica Blinn as Suzie’s best friend and musician. The band expresses thanks to Todd Sherwood and The 5 Spot for the filming location.

The video is a scream, an boldly infectious musical rendition of “girls’ night out.” One watch and you’ll be on the phone with your bestie, or your best girl, making plans with one foot out the door — it’s that catchy and inspirational. And then you’ll put the song on repeat for your entire night. Hard drivin’ rock ‘n roll supports images of the the women having simple fun at a bar and onstage.

I grew up listening to rock and roll songs sung mostly from the male perspective because, let’s face it, women were and still are underrepresented in rock and roll. When I was a teenager learning and performing songs that were originally sung by men, most of the time, I would choose to sing the song the way it was written, without changing the words to maintain a heterosexual narrative. It continues to be important to me to write and sing songs in a way that offers more than one viewpoint of love and sexuality. — Erica Blinn